The Nokia Lumia 820 is something of a rising star, with Sports Direct being the latest company to start rolling it out to its employees. The company is helping its regional managers’ work more efficiently by providing them with the best mobile solutions in the marketplace: the Nokia Lumia 820.

Sports Direct is the UK’s leading sports retailer and has around 18,000 employees in the UK alone. The company’s UK operations are divided into regions, each with an individual manager. With lots of travel, long days and many organisational responsibilities, effective communication on the go is vital to keep the business running smoothly.

Jay Lyford, IT Manager at Sports Direct has been speaking about the choices behind settling on the Nokia Lumia 820. “Over the past year or so, we’ve been pressed by the need for managers to be more connected on the go,” says Mr Lyford. “We needed to make sure they had the right devices, enabling managers to take pictures of stock and check, receive and send email on the road.”

“We have been using Nokia’s Lumia range of smartphones since they first launched in October 2011 as we were keen to get a foothold with the Windows Phone operating system,” added Mr Lyford. “We are a Microsoft house through and through and Nokia’s Lumia devices are perfectly suited to our needs.”

The company had initially supplied many of its regional managers with the Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710. However, it’s now taking full advantage of the arrival of Windows Phone 8 and is issuing the Nokia Lumia 820 to managers so they can take advantage of the new Windows Phone 8 features, such as OTA backup of texts and Company Hub.

Lyford picks up on the benefits of Windows Phone 8, “Company Hub allows us to push vital apps, company updates and important communications to users’ devices. Quite simply the Nokia Lumia 820, working with the rest of our Microsoft environment, makes communication across the estate simple and delivers a great end-user experience”.

Before opting for the Nokia Lumia and Windows Phone, Sports Direct were looking for help in three key areas, improved security, the high licencing costs of their then current solution and a wider rollout to staff.

“Moving away from BlackBerry meant we could give smartphones to more people because there were no more monthly licence fees to pay, or any increased monthly subscriptions,” explains Mr Lyford. “With yearly savings of approximately £14,400, we are now able to drastically increase the number of email-capable phones in use.”

When it comes to security, Nokia Lumia comes with device locking and remote wiping, ensuring all data is safe and secure. “Security is very important, especially with such a large user base. We didn’t consider iOS or Android as we are not able to manage individual devices as we would like, nor are we able to secure them.”

Nokia Lumia with Windows Phone was the solution for better syncing, better security and an intuitive interface. “They love the new Lumia devices because they’re smart, quick and have great functionality,” says Mr Lyford.